Bolivian officer Mario Teran Salazar died Thursday at the age of 80 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in eastern Bolivia, his relatives said. It was he who claimed to have killed Ernesto “Che” Guevara in 1967.
54 years ago, on October 9, 1967, Ernesto Guevara, known as “Che”, came under fire from the Bolivian army. Mario Teran Salazar was the one who executed him. He died Thursday at the age of 80 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The hospital refused to confirm death and cause of death due to “medical secrecy”.
On October 8, 1967, the Bolivian army arrested Guevara, a mythical figure in the armed revolutionary actions of the Cold War, with the support of two Cuban-American agents of the CIA.
Che led a handful of guerrillas who survived fighting, hunger and disease in the Bolivian mountains. Wounded in action, he was taken to an abandoned school in the village of La Higuera. The next day, he was shot dead by Teran Salazar with the approval of President René Barrientos (1964-1969), a fierce anti-communist.
“Calm down,” he told me, “and aim well! You will kill a man!”
“It was the worst moment of my life. I saw a tall, very tall, huge Che. His eyes shone brightly,” Teran Salazar said at the time. “Calm down,” he told me, “and aim well! You will kill a man! Then I took a step back to the door, closed my eyes and fired,” the officer said.
At 39, Che became a legend and his body was displayed as a trophy in the nearby town of Vallegrande, an image immortalized by AFP photographer Mark Hutten.
After thirty years of service, Teran Salazar retired and remained anonymous, avoiding the press. He even said for some time that he was not the killer of Guevara, but another soldier with the same name and surname.